#conlang quest

For the first post of Conlang Quest, I want to start at the very beginning by explaining how I became interested in language and conlangs. My particular story may not be interesting to people, but I am curious about how people who conlang discovered conlanging in the first place. What was the first conlang they’d ever heard of? Was it Esperanto? Klingon? Or maybe Dothraki?

My first exposure to constructed languages was Tolkien and the Elvish languages. At a young age, I hadn’t even read the entirety of Lord of the Rings, let alone make it to the Appendices to read all of the linguistic information about Sindarin or Quenya. All I knew was that Tolkien had invented his own language, and that fascinated me. I told my parents that I had an interest in languages.

However, the years that followed seemed to paint me as a liar. I was fine at English, but absolutely rubbish at Chinese, the compulsory second language we had took take at school. I didn’t pick up much of Malay or any other Chinese dialect spoken locally. I was monolingual in an environment that actively encouraged bilingualism. There was a variety of reasons behind this, but the end result was that I hated learning Mandarin and couldn’t be bothered to try. I didn’t read to much Tolkien inbetween, either.

Thankfully, my hatred of Chinese was chipped away by various teachers. I knew enough to get by exams at the very least. The breaking point was when I got into Hong Kong Kung Fu movies, and I torrented Drunken Master 1978 in its original Cantonese voices, complete with Chinese subtitles. For the first time in my life, I had fun learning Chinese by trying to study from the subtitles. It also helped that Cantonese is far better sounding than Mandarin.

My earlier fascination with language seemed to resurface. One fateful day I decided to watch Youtube videos about languages and such, and I stumbled upon Xidnaf’s Youtube channel. And I when I find a creator I like, I usually try to experience almost everything they make. His videos are usually pretty interesting and teach a lot of useful linguistic information. But the most important one I saw was “Why People Make Their Own Languages”.

The video is still good, by the way. It covers the basic history of constructed languages and the general motivations behind creating them. I’d recommend this video as an introduction for someone who’s never heard of conlangs before. It does leave out a few important artlangs, like Klingon and Quenya, which are only mentioned at the end by his guest, Artifexian. 

The description of Xidnaf’s video then links to Artifexian’s channel, who plans on showing his viewers how to create their own constructed language.

Artifexian’s channel was fascinating. His videos are neatly and clearly presented. He started off by teaching his viewers the basics of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Being aware of the sounds I was making for the first time was mind-blowing. Then he had an entertaining guest video with Xidnaf where he put together a phonology for his language. That was probably the best video on conlanging that he’s made, even if the advice given is a bit spotty.

However, Artifexian updates infrequently, so I looked around to find more information after I finished all of his videos. He linked to Zompist as a guide, and so did r/conlangs, so I went and checked out Zompist and his Language Construction Kit (LCK).

Interestingly, Zompist is where Artifexian got most of his advice. There are many striking similarities between the first page of the LCK and Artifexian’s videos.  The sequence of linguistic topics presented is the same. But to Artifexian’s credit, he elaborated on them in far more detail. The usage of sound and diagram to explain place and manner of articulation went a long way in teaching viewers how this stuff works.

But there’s more to making a language than merely a phonology. Gradually I kinda fell out of following Artifexian, because he doesn’t really have videos that explain conlanging beyond phonology. Don’t get me wrong, phonology is still a deep rabbit hole that you could continue to explore, but after a while I feel like I get it. I know most of what I need to know to make a phonology for a conlang. I intuitively understand what what your stereotypical natural phonology should look like.

In the end really, a lot of it comes down to taste. I’m not really that interested in seeing other people’s phonology charts. Give me a text at least! I don’t have evidence for this, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a lot of conlanging noobs out there who obsess about phonology and only have phonology charts to show for it. Like I said, there’s more than that.

Right now, I’m trying to understand stress systems, but I’m also trying to wrap my head around basic syntax, different kinds of special words and things verbs can be marked for. Stuff like the grammar, the bones of how you express yourself in a language and how meaning is conveyed. Phonology to me is just the skin. The outer layer. It’s cool, and can look really awesome, but it’s just scratching the surface. And a language can have any sound really. The structure and grammar is what really makes it tick.

I’ve yet to actually make a constructed language, at least, not one in it’s entirety. My goal of 2018 is to produce a working grammar of my first language, which is really just a test to get my feet wet in conlanging.

But conlanging is artform especially demanding for a beginner to learn, considering that an education in an entire field of science is required to become good at it.

So here I am. I don’t think that taking linguistics at a higher education seems to be in my future. But I am interested in learning. Conlang Quest is blog meant for self-studying. By writing posts about linguistics, conlangs or any related topics I happen to be looking at, I can get some of this stuff to stick in my head. Thankfully, there are well defined ways describing and classifying languages, so I have a fairly linear path ahead of me. Or at least, that’s the kind of road I’m hoping to chart ahead with this blog.

As an older teenager, I went back to Tolkien, read all of LOTR, and even peaked at the language section of the Appendices. I could understand most of it and I loved the Tengwar. It’s probably the best featural alphabet, no, the best constructed script ever made. I really like Tolkien as an artist. Not only has he written really awesome books, he’s pioneered conlanging. And he did it all for fun. To tell you the truth, I’m making a conlang for a comic I want to make. But making comics is even harder than making conlangs, even if it’s easier to appreciate. I’d love to spend as much time as possible learning about languages and conlanging, but I’d also love to spend all that time drawing and making comics. In the end I can’t spend to much time conlanging.